In Memoriam:Mary Anne Raywid

Mary Anne Raywid, a legendary social foundations scholar, died on January 12. The news came to me from Faustine Jones Wilson, by way of Joe DeVitis. Raywid was a unique, distinguished contributor to the field. There is at least one award named after her, given by the Society of Professors of Education (SPE). Information about the Mary Anne Raywid Award is available online. Here is what a friend, Larry Klein, had to say about his memories of Dr. Raywid:

I also am very much saddened about Mary Anne Raywid’s death and I remember clearly my first meeting with her when I presented a paper in graduate school at a department meeting in the mid 1960’s. This was in Bloomington, Indiana at Indiana U. where she was visiting at the time. She was so gracious in her comments about my half baked paper and I’ll never forget that friendly smile and warm initial greeting.

Another strong memory image I have of Mary Anne was of a paper presentation she was giving and her firm prediction that the charter school movement was going to destroy public education. I don’t remember when I heard her say that, but I do clearly remember how firm she was in her prediction and how worried she was about the growing movement to create charter schools. We’ll see if her prediction turns out to be true.

The first time I met Mary Anne was when I was a graduate student, attending a meeting of the American Educational Studies Association in Milwaukee (I think) – over twenty years ago. We somehow wound up riding in the same taxi and she was friendly and kind. After we introduced ourselves and I learned who she was, I said something terribly dumb like: “Oh! I have read articles by you!” It was so exciting to meet her. She was gracious and seemed to forgive my lack of eloquence.

Mary Anne was a professor at Hofstra University in New York. She lived in Hawaii after she retired, but remained amazingly active and engaged with educational issues. She had been in northern Virginia with her son and her family since last August.